Retrieving shopping carts in large parking lots is primarily a manual task. Workers push or pull a column of stacked wheeled shopping carts from various collection areas located throughout the parking lots. The longer the column of carts being pushed or pulled, the more difficult it becomes to control. Even with more than one worker, the collecting and guiding of long columns of carts is difficult and time consuming. Furthermore, in large parking lots, workers must push or pull the column of carts great distances. The retrieval task can be physically exhausting and may result in injury to the workers. Carts also can be damaged as the workers struggle to push or pull long columns to the store door.
The difficulties associated with manual retrieval of shopping carts led to the development of motorized cart retriever vehicles for pulling or pushing columns of shopping carts through parking lots in a train-like fashion. Examples of such motorized shopping cart retrievers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,934,694 to Schugt et al., which issued Aug. 10, 1999, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,220,379 to Schugt et al., which issued Apr. 24, 2001. Both of these patents are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties into the present application.
As shown in prior art FIG. 1, which a perspective view of a prior art motorized shopping cart retriever 2, the retriever 2 is provided with a shopping cart coupler assembly 4 mounted on an end of the retriever 2 (e.g., the front end 6 of the retriever 2). As indicated in prior art FIG. 2, which is an enlarged view of the cart coupler assembly 4 depicted in FIG. 1, the cart coupler assembly 4 includes a jaw bar 8 having two arcuate jaws 10 located on opposite ends of the jaw bar 8. The jaws 10 are oriented such that their openings face the same direction.
As can be understood from prior art FIG. 2, to engage the prior art cart coupler assembly 4 with a first shopping cart 12, the rear of the first shopping cart 12 is positioned so that the vertical rear frame members 14 are resting against the coupler assembly 4. The first shopping cart 12 is then manually slid sideways to cause the vertical rear frame members 14 to engage both jaws 10. A locking pin 16 is pushed across the open portion of a jaw 10 to secure the first shopping cart 12 to the cart coupler assembly 4. As additional carts are collected, they are stacked into the first shopping cart 12 that is secured to the cart coupler assembly 4. Stray carts are added to the front of the line as the collecting work proceeds.
While the prior art coupler assembly 4 is useful and functional, it is not compatible with all shopping cart configurations. Also, the prior art coupler assembly 4 requires an operator to manually move the shopping cart 12 into engagement with the coupler assembly 4.
There is a need in the art for a cart coupler assembly that is more readily attachable to a greater number of shopping cart configurations and requires less manual effort by an operator to couple to a shopping cart. There is also a need in the art for a method of attaching a cart coupler assembly to a shopping cart that is less manually intensive for an operator.